1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to portable terminals, and more particularly, to a method for controlling a display of contents in a portable terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Portable terminals such as cell phones and smartphones support a call function based on mobility, and have expanded their functionality for use in a variety of fields due to advancing technology. Today's portable terminals provide various input methods to provide user functions. For example, as a conventional portable terminal provides a touch screen (including a touch panel and a display unit), a user may process an operation on the touch screen to select a specific image to be displayed. For instance, a progress bar/search bar is typically provided, which a user can drag to scroll through a stored video program, thus enabling the user to search for a desired scene and start reproduction from that scene. Further, the portable terminal creates a touch event due to a corresponding user operation and controls an application program corresponding to a user function based on the created touch event.
A portable terminal has a display region smaller than that of larger devices like desktop PCs, to support mobility and portability. Accordingly, a conventional portable terminal outputs information for supporting various functions on a display region of a relatively small size. When the conventional portable terminal displays or plays certain contents configured by a plurality of elements, for example, video (i.e., a moving image) configured by a plurality of frames, it can be difficult to search for a particular scene in the video. In particular, when the user missed viewing certain desired scenes or became interrupted while watching the video, the user can perform review from a corresponding scene afterwards. However, because a function for searching a scene is supported on a small display region in the conventional portable terminal, it can be difficult to search for a desired scene. Accordingly, users may inconveniently abandon a search operation for the scene and instead just re-start viewing again from a random scene This type of problem frequently occurs due to the mobility characteristics of the portable terminal. When the user cannot precisely find a certain scene at a desired time point, it is inconvenient for the user to re-start the video from a scene already viewed. It is noted that the foregoing inconvenience can also occur in a large display device as well as a portable terminal.
Further, the portable terminal provides contents configured by a plurality of elements, for example, a plurality of items in the form of a list. Examples include a contact list of a phone book, pages in an electronic book, or a multiplicity of content on a long web page. Because it is difficult to display all of a plurality of items on one screen, a slider (also called a “scroller”) is provided such that a user may search other items that are not displayed on one screen. In this case, contents searching speed using the slider may be proportional to the number of total items, the displayed size of respective items, and a touch moving distance on the slider. When the user uses a slider corresponding to items on which a relatively large display item is displayed, and having many elements, rapid moving speed of items is provided to the user. Accordingly, when the user attempts to finely search for a certain item, the screen movement is often too fast as the slider is slowly dragged. As a consequence, the search can be difficult to carry out.